Inspiration and Motivation are back!

Well, here we are again, it's been ages since I've posted anything. It's time to catch up with this creative journey I've been on and for anyone who reads this, thank you for visiting my very sporadically updated blog.

Since my last post, much has changed in my life - at least in the material sense. I am no longer working at the job I previously mentioned, unfortunately the company downsized the division and laid off staff - me included.  Since then, I've been looking for employment and recently found new inspiration to be an artist once again - on Twitter of all places - lol.

Since activating my account in the twittersphere recently, I am finding myself embracing the social network platform in ways I never knew were possible. I've met so many talented artists and inspiration absolutely abounds there.

There was a fantastic happening among a group of artists called #drawingaugust last month, where artists were drawing every day and posting their new art or works in progress daily.  Better late than never, I discovered it just in time to contribute this eye, drawn specifically for it on the 31st.

Since then, a new happening called #paintseptember has been taking place. It is the same idea except for painting and so far I've completed three new works. The first one isn't really to my liking in it's entirety (you can see it on my twitter page), it was painted using water color pencils and I'll post a detail of it here.

Cropped from a photo taken on my phone:

The next two are both water color paintings and were scanned:

So, there you have it - on the social media site I used to resist getting involved with, thinking it was only a self promoting bombardment of narcissistic tweets, inspiration and motivation have both been found - along with a real sense of community.

I'm lovin' it in the twittersphere and if you do too (or like it a lot), give me a follow - I follow back (unless you seem to be crazy, obnoxious or rude - then I probably won't).

Find me here: https://twitter.com/OnlineBy_Design :-)

Time Goes By...

I can't believe how long it's been since my last post!

My reason for starting this blog was to build inspiration, to draw, to paint more... well, shortly after starting this blog, I also began working full time because being a starving artist really isn't as much fun as it sounds.

Working a 40 hour week has left me little creative energy at the end of the day, even though it looks like it from the lack of blog entries over the past year, I haven't been completely idle when it comes to creating.  At my job, most of the projects I do are creative - which is a great thing.  Copy writing/editing, graphics, photo editing and optimization, web design and maintenance, document layout, brochures, leaflets, video editing... this is all part of what I do there every day, so the creative juices still flow, just not offering me so much to write about here.

With that said, I am determined to get back at it - had to break the 'nothing to post about' streak with something and this seems like a good place to start. So if there is anyone out there who actually reads this post, welcome back... now, where did I put my paints?

Welcome to my Artist Blog!

After some time away from drawing and painting, distracted by technology and other pursuits, this past Christmas I painted a portrait of my sister's dog 'Tillie' as a gift for her and her husband.

 
It was such a good feeling to paint again, I had forgotten how much I enjoy it and it awoke in me the desire to get back to the basics of art with a pencil and a paint brush again. 

I began researching online artist communities and considering which ones I might want to join to see if I could sell 'prints on demand' and original artwork, when I realized I needed to get a little more organized and start at the beginning. So I've spent the past few weeks scanning older photos of my artwork, preparing them for the web and designing my online portfolio http://www.onlinebydesign.ca as the first step in this process and the second step has been setting up this blog.

I'm sure it will go through a lot of changes over the next few weeks and months as I decide upon the look and feel I want for it.  Now that both my site and blog are online however, I will begin signing up for the various artist community sites and places to sell art online that have caught my attention and will post links to those when they are ready to share.

My goal in starting this blog is to encourage new inspiration and motivation to continue to grow in me as an artist and to keep learning and doing!